This invention relates to improved method and apparatus for giving material an aged appearance and more particularly, to provide a method and apparatus for cleaning, abrading, scraping, puncturing or otherwise working fabrics or garments in order to modify the appearance, smoothness, coefficient of friction, handle, drape, and other related fabric proprieties.
In recent years, the commercial process of providing garments, particularly denim, with an aged or distressed appearance has been found to be highly desirable by many consumers. In the past denim has been commercially faded by subjecting the denim to either a chemical bath or to abrasive particulates or both in combination. A popular method is to use pumice saturated with a bleaching agent. This saturated pumice is added to the wash cycle to obtain an uneven faded or scuffed look which almost passes for natural wear. Numerous variations of this process have been practiced with the use of enzymes or acids instead of bleach as well as ceramics, rubber balls or sand instead of pumice. An example of this is U.S. Pat. No. 4,765,100 which discloses pre-formed sand and resin bonded abrasive elements mixed with denim jeans and tumbled within an elongate drum. Another variation is to pretreat the fabric by sand or shot blasting prior to treatment by chemicals or abrasives. This treatment is used to accelerate the aging and distressing of the fabric.
A major problem with the current means of altering fabric texture and appearance is that the large stones used in the process, along with the very abrasive particulate generated during processing, are very deleterious to equipment, and in addition, require manual removal from the processed garments due to the tendency of the smaller particles to accumulate in pockets and interior surfaces.
Another problem is that the washing process itself is very time consuming and increases the cost of manufacturing the garment to a significant degree.
A further problem is that this abrasive washing process is very inexact. Due to the variables involved, the final appearance of the garment is not consistent. Moreover, the combination of chemical and abrasive treatment degrades the fabric strength and reduces the garment life.
The present invention solves the above problems in a manner not disclosed in the known prior art.